Margaret Roach is one of my favorite garden bloggers, so I had to track down her ten-year-old book, from which her blog gets its name. The photos are beautiful, and the text is both informative and inspiring. One of my favorite pieces is her lament that she is already 35 (at the time) and worries that she doesn't have enough years left to create the garden she wants. I think every gardener feels that way.
A few ideas I picked up from her book: golden hostas under aucuba to echo the color; try some of the following groundcovers - aruncus aethusifolius, variegated ribbon grass Phalaris arundinacea 'Picta' that can take shade, petasites japonicus with its big leaves, comfrey symphytum officinale that takes shade, and bigroot geranium G. macrorrhizum that she mentions frequently in her blog; consider planting rhubarb in the corner garden because it can take some shade; divide asters every three years; consider aster divaricatus (white wood aster) and A. macrophyllus because they are natives and can take shade.
It's a beautiful book to leaf through. Her gardens, which at the time she was cultivating only part-time, have simply gotten more beautiful over the years. Too bad it's out of print...
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